About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Wednesday: Palestinian killed in Hebron after attack, former member Jewish underground wounded

A former member of the Jewish Underground and his wife were wounded Wednesday evening in a shooting attack in the West Bank, only hours after two others were wounded in a stabbing attack in Hebron.
The Palestinian who reportedly carried out the attack In Hebron was shot dead. He was identified as Abd al-Rahman Yusri Maswada.He
was the cousin of Ihab Zakariya Maswada, 21, who was killed by Israeli
forces on Monday after he stabbed an Israeli near Hebron's Ibrahimi
Mosque. Abd al Rahman was the 119th Palestinian to be killed in this way since 1 October.
Shaul Nir, the former member of the Jewish underground, was found guilty of perpetrating a 1983 shooting and hand grenade attack on the Islamic College of Hebron, which killed three students and wounded 33. After being sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the attack and attempted assassinations of Palestinian officials, President Chaim Herzog commuted his sentence and ordered his release in 1990, after serving less than seven years.Nir sustained serious injuries in the attack, his wife Racheli Nir sustained light injuries. The two were on their way to visit their daughter, who lives in the West Bank settlement Avnei Hefetz.
The gunmen fled the scene.
The incident came after a soldier and a civilian were wounded in a stabbing attack in Hebron early on Wednesday afternoon. One of the wounded in the Hebron attack is the son of former Knesset member Orit Strock (Bayit Yehudi).